Jean Paul Gaultier

Jean Paul Gaultier was born in 1952 in a Paris suburb and has started his career with Pierre Cardin  in 1970, on the day of his 18th birthday.  After working at Esterel , Patou and again at Cardin,  Gaultier decided to start his own fashion house and staged his first show in Paris in 1976. Critical and commercial success followed quickly and by the early eighties he was one of the most talked about young designers.  From the beginning of his career, Jean Paul Gaultier wanted to show that beauty has many facets and that we can find it where we least expect it like in a lowly tin can which first became a bracelet and later the packaging for his hugely successful perfume.  His menswear was launched in 1984 with the “Male Object” collection and in 1997 Gaultier has realized his dream of starting an haute couture collection “Gaultier Paris”. He was also the designer for Hermes womenswear from 2004 to 2011. In 2015 Mr. Gaultier decided to stop his ready to wear and continue with the haute couture.

Throughout his career Gaultier has worked in dance, music and the cinema. His costumes for Madonna’s Blond Ambition tour have left an indelible imprint on the popular culture. His first collaboration in the cinema was with Peter Greeneway for “The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover” in 1989. He also designed costumes for “The City of Lost Children” by Caro and Jeunet, “Fifth Element” by Luc Besson and has worked three times with  Pedro Almodovar on “Kika”, “Bad Education” and “The Skin I live In”.
In 2018 he presented the Fashion Freak Show at the Folies Bergere in Paris, a revue that tells the story of his life and the fifty years of popular culture through song and dance and fashion. After a triumphant nine month run in Paris the show will now commence its international tour.
In January 2020, Mr Gaultier presented his last Haute Couture show celebrating 50 years of Fashion at the Theatre du Chatelet. A huge show featuring master pieces on the catwalk with Famous models, VIPs and friends of the House, and with artists performing on stage like Catherine Ringer and Boy George. From now on, the “House of Gaultier” will continue its Haute Couture activities with one guest designer per season who will reinterpret the codes of the House.

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